Advisory trustees

Advisory trustees are nominated by owners and appointed by the Māori Land Court to give advice or direction to the responsible trustees.  Where the Māori Trustee is responsible trustee, we strongly recommend that owners appoint advisory trustees who will work alongside the Māori Trustee in management of the land.

While the responsible trustee has the final legal responsibility for meeting obligations and any decisions that are made, advisory trustees are closely involved, particularly communicating with owners, helping set direction and advising on strategic decision-making.

A major role of advisory trustees is to communicate with owners to understand their views, and to take those views to the responsible trustee. 

Given the legal obligations of the responsible trustee, there may from time to time be differences of opinion.  For example owners and advisory trustees may wish to make kaumatua grants, but the trust order does not make provision for them, so the responsible trustee cannot agree to make the grants.

In this case, the responsible trustee would call a meeting of owners, and a decision could be made to change the terms of the trust order.  The responsible trustee would then manage the process of changing the trust order through the Māori Land Court.

Who can be an advisory trustee?

Advisory trustees are usually beneficial owners, but may also be people that have been nominated because they bring particular expertise, for instance dairy farming experience, to the group of trustees.